Backfill: The Building That Wouldn't Fall

The sky was clear blue on the
windless Sunday morning of May
21, 1989, when the ten-story Hartford
Park apartment building in
Providence, R.I., was scheduled to
be demolished.
The calm before the storm so to
speak.
The demolition crew had packed
the bottom two floors of the 35-
year-old building with 650 pounds
of dynamite in 1,800 1/3-pound
charges. Residences and businesses
within several blocks had been
evacuated. A crowd of curious
onlookers had gathered behind
police barricades.
All that was left to do was push
down the plunger. Within seconds,
the T-shaped high-rise was expected
to collapse into a cloud of dust at its
base.
The plunger was pushed, and the
explosion roared as expected. Black
smoke and dust clouds engulfed the
lower